Page:The Chaldean Account of Genesis (1876).djvu/241

 being enclosed by some barrier or wall, with a gate for entrance. Heabani and Izdubar open this gate where the story reopens on the fifth column.

1. the sharp weapon

2. to make men fear him

3. Humbaba poured a tempest out of his mouth

4. he heard the gate of the forest [open]

5. the sharp weapon to make men fear him [he took]

6. and in the path of his forest he stood and [waited]

7. Izdubar to him also [said to Heabani]

Here we see Humbaba waiting for the intruders, but the rest of the column is lost; it appears to have principally consisted of speeches by Izdubar and Heabani on the magnificent trees they saw, and the work before them. A single fragment of Column VI., containing fragments of six lines, shows them still at the gate, and when the next tablet, No. V., opens, they had not yet entered.

The fifth tablet is more certain than the last; it appears to refer to the conquest of Humbaba or Hubaba. I have only discovered fragments of this tablet, which opens with a description of the retreat of Humbaba.